bzr resolve can't handle bzr rm'd files

If there is a conflict in a file, and you bzr rm --force it, bzr resolve gives you this error:

bzr: ERROR: The file id "main.cpp-20081023073446-efukp5qw94mvisep-1" is not present in the tree <WorkingTree4 of /tmp/alternate>.

Which then becomes very confusing, and seems to be fixed via either bzr resolve --all (i think), or reverting the missing files, resolving and then removing.

Test case (copy-paste into terminal):
cd /tmp
mkdir root
cd root
bzr init .
echo "hello there" > main.cpp
bzr add main.cpp
bzr ci -m "a"
cd ..
bzr branch root alternate
echo "hello there blue" > root/main.cpp
echo "hello there red" > alternate/main.cpp
cd root
bzr ci -m "b"
cd ../alternate
bzr ci -m "c"
bzr merge ../root
bzr rm --force main.cpp
bzr resolve

*** ERROR message as above ***